Over 200 schoolgirls in Nigeria were captured by Islamic extremists, a civil society group said on Wednesday. The girls were abducted two weeks ago and the Nigerian government is trying to get international help in order to rescue them.

Halite Aliyu of the Borno-Yobe People's Forum told the Associated Press Wednesday that the girls’ parents believe they are being sold into marriage to Boko Haram militants for 2,000 naira, which is around $12. The parents are only receiving news through a forest near the border with Cameroon, where the militants are known to hideout.

“The latest reports are that they have been taken across the borders, some to Cameroon and Chad,” Aliyu said, but noted that the reports couldn’t be immediately verified.

The government says that the girls were kidnapped two weeks ago and that only international intervention can help get them released. The girls were taken from the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, Borno State.

According to PM News Nigeria, protesters marched at the National Assembly on Wednesday, calling for their girls to be released. Men and women dressed in red and organizers used Twitter to get the word out.

“The government has to understand that we are not going to allow this silence to continue,” organizer Hadiza Bala Usman told PM News.

“The longer it takes the dimmer the chances of finding them, the longer it takes the more traumatized the family and the abducted girls are,” Sen. Ali Ndume said, notes the AP.

Around 50 girls did manage to escape their captors during the kidnapping, but 220 are still missing. They are between the ages of 16 and 18. A Change.org petition trying to drum up interest in the case around the world has earned nearly 70,000 signatures.